UK Local Elections 2022

[Oryxslayer]

Second council done.

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1522364643708125190?s=20&t=5rzXZLc...

Classic every vote matters situation.

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1522364790332661763?s=20&t=5rzXZLcZ...

Tories in Worchester are expecting to lose enough seats to lose control of their minority to a different coalition.

[vileplume]

Second council done.

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1522364643708125190?s=20&t=5rzXZLc...

Classic every vote matters situation.

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1522364790332661763?s=20&t=5rzXZLcZ...

Tories in Worchester are expecting to lose enough seats to lose control of their minority to a different coalition.

Lol that is a great Americanism

[Brother Jonathan]

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1522360731760480257

Wandsworth starting to come in now. That Labour/Lib Dem split in a place like Wandsworth is interesting to note.

You can't assume that Lib Dem voters and Labour voters are simply interchangeable. There is a significant demographic of people (wealthy homeowners) that will sometimes vote for the Lib Dems but would never vote for Labour. You'll find a fair few of these types in the new very expensive riverside developments in Nine Elms.

There is a reason why Labour's current strategy for defeating the Tories in 2024 seems to involve the Lib Dems hoovering up soft Tory votes. These people could quite possibly be persuaded to vote against the Tories but most could never bring themselves to vote Labour.

I suppose the interesting point there then is that such a strategy was not enough to win in a ward like this. Granted of course it is only one ward (and an odd and new one apparently), so far from useful for extrapolating out. Just did not know if you might see this elsewhere in Wandsworth, but by the sounds of it the wealthy developments in this area means it is not at all an indication that the Lib Dems are going to be a factor elsewhere.

[YL]

Colchester council has seen the Tories lose two seats already- including their leader.

Is significant as it’s a major Lib Dem target in the General election.

The Colchester town constituency (which doesn’t cover the whole borough) is actually more of a Labour target now, though it was Lib Dem in the not too distant past.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There is a reason why Labour's current strategy for defeating the Tories in 2024 seems to involve the Lib Dems hoovering up soft Tory votes. These people could quite possibly be persuaded to vote against the Tories but most could never bring themselves to vote Labour.

It's nearly always been the case that the unwinding of any sort of polarisation is good for Labour.

[Blair]

Two Conservative council leaders have cited partygate as being the reason they didn’t win…

[Blair]

First result from Peterborough sees a Labour pick up on a big swing. What a weird place politically.

[Torrain]

https://mobile.twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1522369551031279617

[Blair]

Labour hold the line in Hartlepool and don’t lose any seats. There were muttering about it seeing more loses.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour have just held a ward in Dudley (Quarry Bank & Dudley Wood) by 12pts that they lost by 23pts last year. Used to have a massive UKIP vote.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So far Labour's good perfomance seems to be disguised by the fact that most councils that have declares are places where they performed reasonably well pre-2019 but totally collapsed in 2019 so most swings seem pretty minute.

[YL]

Labour win both seats in Wandle ward, Wandsworth.  According to Adam Gray’s notionals in another place, the Tories were about 14 percentage points ahead there in 2018.

[vileplume]

There is a reason why Labour's current strategy for defeating the Tories in 2024 seems to involve the Lib Dems hoovering up soft Tory votes. These people could quite possibly be persuaded to vote against the Tories but most could never bring themselves to vote Labour.

It's nearly always been the case that the unwinding of any sort of polarisation is good for Labour.

Yes, I agree with this. It benefits the Lib Dems too. Corbyn being Labour leader stopped a certain type of Tory voters shifting Lib Dem as they feared that this would let Corbyn be PM, so they reluctantly and very unenthusiastically voted Tory to stop him. Starmer is much less scary to these people and they wouldn't lose sleep over him becoming PM, even though they probably still don't much like him or his party.

[KaiserDave]

Should Labour supporters be worried about the loss of seats so far or should I turn off Sky?

[Torrain]

https://mobile.twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1522375770395529218

[JimJamUK]

So far Labour's good perfomance seems to be disguised by the fact that most councils that have declares are places where they performed reasonably well pre-2019 but totally collapsed in 2019 so most swings seem pretty minute.

A few of the early councils (Sunderland, Nuneaton + Bedworth, some provincial towns etc) were already poor results for Labour in 2018 (unpopular councils and genuinely large changes in national political allegiance) and obviously poor at the 2019 general election so their relatively poor result this year was to be expected. As in 2018 we are waiting to see how they do in more 'normal' territory.

[Logical]

Wild. Voters of Dudley must be the most bipolar in England.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1522378633179971585

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So far Labour's good perfomance seems to be disguised by the fact that most councils that have declares are places where they performed reasonably well pre-2019 but totally collapsed in 2019 so most swings seem pretty minute.

A few of the early councils (Sunderland, Nuneaton + Bedworth, some provincial towns etc) were already poor results for Labour in 2018 (unpopular councils and genuinely large changes in national political allegiance) and obviously poor at the 2019 general election so their relatively poor result this year was to be expected. As in 2018 we are waiting to see how they do in more 'normal' territory.

When are the results from the normal territories going to start coming in ?

[Sestak]

Should Labour supporters be worried about the loss of seats so far or should I turn off Sky?

lol I've had them on in the background and their tone sounds extremely "LABOUR DOOMED"

[Oryxslayer]

Should Labour supporters be worried about the loss of seats so far or should I turn off Sky?

Short answer: No. Long answer: No. Basically, the vast majority of these seats were last contested in 2018, back when Corbyn's Labour was at it's high point and more importantly, their coalition was different from today. In 2019 the Tories won a bunch of northern turf, and then in 2021 they repeated that victory and swept a lot northern council seats. Imagine the seats they didn't hold in 2018 getting more Conservative, and the seats the did becoming marginal or likelier losses.

So Labour Holding as many seats as they have in the country so far is good. Gains from a high benchmark when you collapsed 10, 15, or 20 points would be hard, but some are happening. In fact, more losses were expected. There is a reason why we obsessed over Sunderland at the start, cause Labour only lost one seat after several years of large losses there when the other thirds of the council were up.

Essentially imagine it as legacy dems in Rust Belt state legislatures holding on in 2018 despite Trump winning their seats. But because the easy point of comparison data-wise is the 2018 locals, when the seats were contested, it's hard to detect this signal from the noise unless you know what you are seeing.

Basically:

https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1522379627175583744?s=20&t=5rzXZL...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What matters more from a 'how are they doing?' perspective would be general patterns and vote movement since last year - and this is all very positive from a Labour perspective so far.

[JimJamUK]

2018 was only a high benchmark in the sense that drawing level with the Tories was the best Labour have done in years. Once you allow for the disproportionate demographic swing since the 2019 general election and the fact Labour seem to actually have a small lead over the Tories, then they shouldn't really be seeing much of a swing to the Tories even in the 'Red Wall'. In fact this is mostly the case. There are some obvious outliers (as there were in 2018) but most of the heavily Leave seats are not seeing massive swings to the Conservative but often rather modest ones. This is counter-balanced by a decent swing to Labour in more Remain territory (again, broadly speaking).

[YL]

Hull is confirmed as a Lib Dem gain.  The Tories lost their last seat as well.

[YL]

Labour have comfortably won control of the new Cumberland unitary, with the Tories performing poorly.  Labour have 30, the Tories 7, Lib Dems 4, Greens 2 and Independents 3.

(All now in.)

[LAB-LIB]

The BBC has confirmed that the Liberal Democrats have taken Kingston-upon-Hull from Labour. Labour now has a net gain of council seats across England.